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Post #477940

Author
zombie84
Parent topic
STAR WARS: EP IV 2004 REVISITED ADYWAN *1080p HD VERSION NOW IN PRODUCTION
Link to post in topic
https://originaltrilogy.com/post/id/477940/action/topic#477940
Date created
24-Feb-2011, 4:18 PM

MJPollard, I predict this thread will soon be massively derailed by that comment....BUT, I'll just rebuke it as efficiently as I can so as not to waste too much space.

The purpose of this site was to get the original Star Wars films released in the highest quality possible. This was because, in 2004 or so when the site went online, we were in the age of DVD yet the original versions only existed as Laserdisc in the best of forms. In 2006, Lucasfilm released the master for the very same Laserdisc. So, how did that solve anything? We already had that, basically. Putting a Laserdisc on DVD and calling it "a DVD release" is not meaningful. The point of the site was not to get the films released in any form no matter how bad the quality, because they were already available on Laserdisc, the point was to have them released properly to the standards of the day. A similar comparison might be to transfer a really good VHS tape to DVD and release that and then say "this site now has no purpose." Furthermore, while a Laserdisc master was unacceptable in 2006, it is doubly so today, where we live in the age of high definition and Blu Ray. If anything, the site has more purpose than ever now. In 2006 it had been 13 years since the last telecine of the films (the 1993 Laserdisc master, which was reused in 1995 and released on DVD that year). In 2011, it is now close to 20 years since the last telecine of the films, and we aren't even using the same resolution standards anymore. The original versions are in more dire straits than they ever have been.

Anyway, I'm sure there will be more vocal critics than me here, but I don't want to say more than that.